In this paper we address practical questions such as: How do symbols appear and evolve in an inquiry-oriented classroom? How can an instructor connect students with traditional notation and vocabulary without undermining their sense of ownership of the material? We tender an example from linear algebra that highlights the roles of the instructor…

The purpose of this paper is to describe an instructional sequence where students invent a method for locating lines of eigenvectors and corresponding solutions to systems of two first order linear ordinary differential equations with constant coefficients. The significance of this paper is two-fold. First, it represents an innovative alternative…